Hello bumblebees,
I've got an older polish for you today. I can't get confirmation on when this polish was first released but I know it's been a few years because I've had this polish recommended to me on more than one occasion in the past. I finally decided to pick up this polish from the discount site 10DollarMall.com. Again, not a sponsor but seriously, sponsors, I'm available. For a while I couldn't find Gargantuan Green Grape in stores. I think this was around the same time I was trying to track down What's With the Cattitude. Then I feel like it started showing up in stores again but I was no longer tempted to get it. Maybe it was the fact that I'd already been purchasing other light greens like Zoya Tracie and Essie Navigate Her. By the way, I can do a comparison of OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, Zoya Tracie, Essie Navigate Her, and Butter London Bossy Boots if you'd like. But anyway, I saw this polish on the site and you know I'm a sucker for a sale so I had to pick it up.
Color: OPI Gargantuan Green Grape is a pastel green creme polish. For me, it's definitely a pastel. It is just a touch lighter than the other greens in my collection and the color also has this creamy quality that is unique to pastels. It vacillates between a paler, cool-toned green and a brighter, pale spring green. I find that the polish looks cooler and dustier indoors and brighter and more yellow-toned outdoors in direct sunlight. I think it looks pretty indoors or outdoors but I think I prefer the cool-toned green as it's a bit more unique. This isn't the most flattering green for my skintone but I do think it's a fairly flattering color. It can veer on garish in the wrong lighting but for the most part, I love it.
Formula: The polish has a thinner, fluid formula. It is rather sheer.
Application: This polish has the typical wide OPI brush and longtime readers will know I prefer the thinner Essie brush but the width of the brush didn't create any problems for me. The first coat went on smoothly without any drag. However, because the formula is thin and the polish is sheer it was difficult to even out. I would suggest that you work with the polish as little as possible. Do not try and even out this polish with the brush. You'll just make things worse. I barely got any coverage with the first coat. With the second coat, I noticed that the brush was really creating streaks and ridges in the polish though the brush still glided smoothly without drag. With the third coat, the brush was still creating a few ridges but generally the polish glided onto the nail very smoothly. At three coats, the polish was not completely opaque. Light was definitely still able to pass through all of my nails and on a few nails, coverage was particularly poor because of the uneven application. I therefore chose to add a fourth coat of polish to my second nail, middle nail, and thumb nail. Painting with my nondominant hand, the polish appeared even less opaque. I had to do four coats on all of my nails and the polish still wasn't completely opaque. Actually I went back and added a fifth coat on two of my nails. I know. I know. Terrible!
Wear: I wore this polish for eight days. In that time, I experienced barely any tip wear. Really the polish only wore away from the very edge of the nail. I did experience a lot of growth in that time which is why I felt the need to remove the polish. I had absolutely no trouble removing this polish. In spite of the multiple coats, the polish actually came off quite easily
CONCLUSION: This is a difficult one for me. I want to recommend this polish because I do love the color and it ends up looking alright. But it is just so sheer. I think you have to make the decision for yourself. Application is manageable and this might work better if you can layer it with something else but I completely understand if you want to skip the hassle of dealing with such a sheer polish.
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SWATCHES
I've got an older polish for you today. I can't get confirmation on when this polish was first released but I know it's been a few years because I've had this polish recommended to me on more than one occasion in the past. I finally decided to pick up this polish from the discount site 10DollarMall.com. Again, not a sponsor but seriously, sponsors, I'm available. For a while I couldn't find Gargantuan Green Grape in stores. I think this was around the same time I was trying to track down What's With the Cattitude. Then I feel like it started showing up in stores again but I was no longer tempted to get it. Maybe it was the fact that I'd already been purchasing other light greens like Zoya Tracie and Essie Navigate Her. By the way, I can do a comparison of OPI Gargantuan Green Grape, Zoya Tracie, Essie Navigate Her, and Butter London Bossy Boots if you'd like. But anyway, I saw this polish on the site and you know I'm a sucker for a sale so I had to pick it up.
Color: OPI Gargantuan Green Grape is a pastel green creme polish. For me, it's definitely a pastel. It is just a touch lighter than the other greens in my collection and the color also has this creamy quality that is unique to pastels. It vacillates between a paler, cool-toned green and a brighter, pale spring green. I find that the polish looks cooler and dustier indoors and brighter and more yellow-toned outdoors in direct sunlight. I think it looks pretty indoors or outdoors but I think I prefer the cool-toned green as it's a bit more unique. This isn't the most flattering green for my skintone but I do think it's a fairly flattering color. It can veer on garish in the wrong lighting but for the most part, I love it.
Formula: The polish has a thinner, fluid formula. It is rather sheer.
Application: This polish has the typical wide OPI brush and longtime readers will know I prefer the thinner Essie brush but the width of the brush didn't create any problems for me. The first coat went on smoothly without any drag. However, because the formula is thin and the polish is sheer it was difficult to even out. I would suggest that you work with the polish as little as possible. Do not try and even out this polish with the brush. You'll just make things worse. I barely got any coverage with the first coat. With the second coat, I noticed that the brush was really creating streaks and ridges in the polish though the brush still glided smoothly without drag. With the third coat, the brush was still creating a few ridges but generally the polish glided onto the nail very smoothly. At three coats, the polish was not completely opaque. Light was definitely still able to pass through all of my nails and on a few nails, coverage was particularly poor because of the uneven application. I therefore chose to add a fourth coat of polish to my second nail, middle nail, and thumb nail. Painting with my nondominant hand, the polish appeared even less opaque. I had to do four coats on all of my nails and the polish still wasn't completely opaque. Actually I went back and added a fifth coat on two of my nails. I know. I know. Terrible!
Wear: I wore this polish for eight days. In that time, I experienced barely any tip wear. Really the polish only wore away from the very edge of the nail. I did experience a lot of growth in that time which is why I felt the need to remove the polish. I had absolutely no trouble removing this polish. In spite of the multiple coats, the polish actually came off quite easily
CONCLUSION: This is a difficult one for me. I want to recommend this polish because I do love the color and it ends up looking alright. But it is just so sheer. I think you have to make the decision for yourself. Application is manageable and this might work better if you can layer it with something else but I completely understand if you want to skip the hassle of dealing with such a sheer polish.
SWATCHES
I decided to include a photo of what three coats of this polish looked like on my right hand (painting with my nondominant hand) so you could see what I meant when I was discussing how sheer and uneven this polish was. You can see the streakiness and patchiness is particularly bad on the nails of my pointer and middle fingers.
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